Today's telecommunications network elements (NEs) include high capacity cross-connects and switches that are interconnected, provisioned and tested to form highly complex network configurations. Specific ports of NEs may be reserved for different uses. For example, respective ports may provide dedicated or preferential service to one user.
There is an on-going effort in the art of network management to provide for the shared control of network management processes. Insight Research has published a Market Report on the subject entitled: Self Provisioning Enterprises and OSSes: Customer Network Management 2000-2005. Customer Network Management (CMN) is an approach to  providing a customer with means to control, and monitor respective ports of a provider's network. Various aspects of CNM have been standardized by various standards bodies and, generally the architecture is defined by a hierarchy schematically illustrated in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a hierarchical management network for management of a data transport network 12 in accordance with the prior art. The data transport network 12 includes a plurality of interconnected NEs 14. Each NE 14 is communicatively coupled with an element management system 16 (EMS) for managing (including provisioning, configuring, and reporting) the respective NE 14. The EMSs 16 collectively form an element management layer 18. It will be appreciated that the simple one-to-one relationship between the NEs 14 and EMSs does not hold in all data transport networks, however it is assumed for the sake of simplicity in the network shown in FIG. 1. A network management layer 20 for receiving management data from the element management layer 18 includes two network management systems (NMSs) 22 that provide network-wide control and monitoring. In other hierarchical management networks, higher layers (such as a services layer) may also be defined. The NMSs 22 provide reporting and analysis of statistics (usage, failure analysis, etc.) as is well known in the art, and can be used to dispatch crews to take preventative, corrective or emergency maintenance, etc. The NMSs 22 also permit an operator to provision, update and control of any of the NEs 14 from a centralized location.
It is known to provide clients with access to NMS 22 data using firewalls, encryption, and known Internet-based technologies. Nonetheless, controlling access to a  significant volume of continuously updated information, based on different client access rights is a complex task, and requires significant processing capacity and communications equipment to meet timeliness requirements of clients, and to maintain effective control over the network by proprietary interests.
The complexity of data transport networks is also a significant hurdle when testing and verifying network elements. As is well understood by those skilled in the art, configurations of data transport networks need to be tested and verified at many levels, for various reasons, and typically require teams of test and verification specialists. Cabling of the interconnections, path verification, protection switching testing, routing algorithms, etc. all have to be maintained, tested, verified and updated. One of the problems with testing involves producing and differentiating consequences of simultaneous events at resources of different NEs. Typically the number of simultaneous events is minimized to limit the rapid increase in messaging in the element management layer and network management layer that follows multiple simultaneous events (autonomous notifications, traps, events, alarms, warnings etc.). Sorting through and sequencing the event results is a processing intensive task. On the other hand, serial testing is longer, incurs more equipment down time, and does not identify consequences of multiple concurrent failures. Typically, fewer than one alarm per NE is tested concurrently because of the message reporting solution deployed in hierarchical management networks. 
There therefore remains a need for a method and apparatus for enabling efficient reporting of management data between layers of a hierarchical management network.